Toward the end of last year, my doctor prescribed ketamine infusions for ongoing chronic pain. It can be an effective treatment for moderate to severe chronic pain, CRPS, Fibro, etc. Other protocols of the same therapy are used for depression, PTSD, and similar. For my treatment, the most severe pain aside from my headaches had been coming from L2-L5 after an injury in August. That MRI revealed further herniations of discs that have been garbage since 2012, 20% loss of height in my lumbar spine and two annular tears. General EDS pain that affects my SI joints, shoulders, wrists, knees, ankles and hips were also hoped to be improved with this. I knew going in that the Chiari headaches would likely not be improved with this therapy, so my hopes weren’t high for that. (Since recording this video, a LP and myelogram confirmed intracranial hypotension and CSF leaks, potentially making the Chiari worse. First blood patch failed, but I’ll update on that when I have a more complete update to share)

For me, this was not an easy thing to go through and I highly recommend doing your research and talking in depth with your pain management doctor before doing this, if it is an option for you. Just make sure the potential benefits will outweigh the difficulty of the infusions and the cost of them, as it is not common for insurance to cover this. My infusions were 4 hours long each day for six total days, and had insurance not covered it (my total out of pocket was met) it would have been around $1600 per treatment.